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Middle East stumbles toward catastrophe

Russian warplane on fire before crashing on a hill near the Syria-Turkey border after it was shot down by Turkey on Tuesday. (AP)

Sat., Nov. 28, 2015

Re: The only solution to ISIS is to annihilate it, Opinion Nov. 25

Re: Withdrawing jets Trudeau's first major blunder, Opinion Nov. 24

While I share the sadness of all Canadians following the Paris attacks, I cannot understand the sense of shock, anger and moral indignation so often expressed.

Western nations have been overthrowing governments, appointing and removing dictators, bombing and invading sovereign Middle Eastern nations for the better part of a century, leaving in their wake almost 2 million dead and countless lives crippled and destroyed.

As a direct consequence of these failed Western interventions, over 16 million Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan refugees languish in camps, living with the daily terror of suicide bombings, fearful even of the skies as drones cruise overhead.

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Under the false pretense of a war against “terror,” we have become terror. How then can we profess shock and moral indignation when others seek to harm us?

Rather than distract ourselves with hatred for the messenger, far better to listen to the message — powerful nations can no longer exploit weaker nations at will, without living in fear themselves.

While condemning violence in any form, it is clear that on this small interconnected planet, security, peace and freedom will henceforth be shared by all nations, or experienced by none.

That is the choice we face.

Mike Ward, Duncan, B.C.

Apropos of Turkey’s attempt to ignite World War III to further its territorial ambitions in Syria, let’s remember that “a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack.” Those are the words of none other than Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2012, when he was Prime Minister of Turkey, as he reacted with outrage to the shooting down of a Turkish jet that had violated Syrian airspace.

And I wonder how the Greeks feel about the proper response to airspace violations. According to a document released by Wikileaks, in 2005 Turkish aircraft entered Greek airspace 1,017 times – as many as 40 times in a single day.

Statistics from the University of Thessaly, based on Greek military reports, put Turkish breaches of Greek airspace last year at a staggering 2,244.

And this year, says the Greek Air Force, Turkey has violated Greek airspace 1,233 times up to the end of October. Thirty-one of those flights were directly over Greek territory.

Let’s hope saner heads prevail and that no one is taken in by Erdogan’s warmongering double standards. The stakes are way too high.

Andrew Brooks, Toronto

With the recent tragic incident of Turkish military shooting down a Russian fighter jet, and ISIS shooting the escaping parachuting Russian pilot out of the sky, it leads me to wonder if we’re on the brink of World War III.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken of ending Canada’s combat mission in Syria and I believe this is the most wise decision. A world war would have devastating consequences as nations are now equipped with nuclear weapons. It is therefore best we protect ourselves at home.

We must look into the long-term well-being of our nation. We must also continue to build bridges of world peace, but on the principles of integrity and justice.

Shakil Mirza, Mississauga

This very dangerous incident demonstrates that Turkey supports ISIS and is willing to provoke World War III to achieve its historical (“The Great Game”) anti-Syrian, anti-Russian, and anti-Kurd objectives, which include preventing the Kurds from ever achieving their independence in Syria, Turkey or elsewhere. This comes at a time when we should be working with the Russians to destroy ISIS, which threatens all of civilized humanity.

After all of this is over (if it ever is), we should grant the Kurds independence starting with their historical homeland in Turkey.

Turkey has time and time again proven itself to be a dubious “ally” in the war against terror and has demonstrated with its reckless and subtle pro-Muslim extremist behavior that it is not sufficiently trustworthy to be member of NATO.

Dr. Michael Pravica, Henderson, NV

These kinds of skirmishes happened between NATO and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, but the important question is what comes next? Russian jets have been flirting with Turkish airspace ever since Vladimir Putin began his military intervention in Syria. Turkey may just have decided enough was enough.

It is clear that Putin has misjudged Turkey’s Erdogan. Both Putin and Erdogan are supposed to be friend and ally, both strongmen, who treat domestic politics as a scorched earth battle for power.

But the Russian leader should have recognized that Turkey, already host to more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees, has a lot at stake in Syria and, in Erdogan, a president who takes rejection personally.

Putin’s Russia is not exactly weak, it’s just alone and unloved after alienating even potential friends such as Turkey and Ukraine. The best way for Putin to figure out how Erdogan will respond to any further Russian moves is probably to imagine how he himself would react. The two men have a lot in common.

Javed Akbar, Ajax

The only solution to ISIS is to annihilate it, Opinion Nov. 25

How utterly depressing watching/listening to the mainstream news coverage drone on and on about the Paris Attacks – sucking every last sentimental moment for all it’s worth. As if we were to believe that ISIS simply fell from the sky, and we have no idea why they would do such an atrocity to innocent Parisians. That they need to be annihilated.

No one wants to talk about the fact that there was no ISIS before the American-led invasion of Iraq. No one wants to talk about how the Taliban was born of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

Or, how Wahhabism, or what we like to call “radical Islam,” which is the religious practice of Islamic terrorists everywhere, was born of a fight against the Ottoman Empire – the original ruthless colonialists of the “Middle East.” A fight that began 250 years ago.

The Ottoman Turks gave way to the French, and the British, the Spanish, the Italians, the Russians, and the Americans. Let us not think about the fact that Western powers have used brutal force to occupy these territories for the better part of 500 years. Let us forget to the fact that it was these very Western powers that dictated the national boundaries of these countries – arbitrarily drawn up on maps in London and Paris, over good cigars and cognacs.

No, let us suspend that particular reading of colonial history, and think of Arabs as only barbarians.

The old adage that we ignore history at our own peril, or that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, are as apt to our own “information” age as they were for any previous age.

We have the world’s libraries at our computer fingertips, yet we collectively know as little about history as any previous society ever did. We are as narcissistic to our own ignorance as any civilization before us. As Donald Rumsfeld once noted, “we do not know, what we do not know.”

And for that we are doomed to repeat the worthless lies and the catastrophic mistakes of our forefathers.

Sherwood Hines, Bancroft

This column is chilling and shocking that it was printed in the Star. The “only solution” and “annihilation” directly echo Nazism while using Nazism to call for and justify large-scale massacres.

And the horrific facts left out are that America’s scorched-earth military campaigns in the Middle East, its arms deals, its alliances with the the most repressive dictatorships, has caused this whole catastrophe. The death toll has already been enormous from these U.S. wars and sanctions.

Not to mention Israel, a nuclear weapons state not subject to any international inspections or restraints, a major global weapons supplier, a perpetrator of ethnic cleansing that has evolved into blatant, rabid racism.

The Israeli author of this column must know that U.S. and Israeli modus operandi is to put peace processes in formaldehyde.

Judith Deutsch, Toronto

Canada has already learnt from its Afghanistan experience that where problems are fundamentally social, tribal or political, a combat operation, even over 14 years, did not succeed. It is now engaged with its coalition partners to train the Afghans to tackle their local insurgency.

There is no guarantee that a combat operation through bombing the ISIS will produce any meaningful result. With almost 1,000 sorties already delivered, military experts themselves are saying that ISIS cannot be eliminated without ground operation.

To this end, rightfully, Canada intends to train the Syrians and Iraqis to fight their own war. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been clear headed and shown determination and sagacity and, as part of Liberal policy, he wants Canada strengthening the efforts of the coalition partners by way of training and equipping the locals.

He is being neither “secretive” nor “combative.”

Abu Reza, economic advisor to the government of Afghanistan (2007-09), Oakville

Putin said that only the Syrian people should decide their own government. He is right, but the darkness of his peace plan is to keep Assad’s regime in power so Russia can keep it foot in Middle East for further disturbing.

Thuan Truong, Toronto

If we really want to defeat ISIS we must also defeat the reasons why children turn to terrorism, otherwise ISIS will have a never ending source of recruits.

Stephen L. Bloom, Toronto

Withdrawing jets Trudeau's first major blunder, Opinion Nov. 24

I am disappointed by Richard Gwyn’s position on the withdrawal of Canadian jets from the fight against ISIS. He characterizes Canada’s combat role in the Middle East as a perfectly sensible one, even if small, with just six bombers. He states that it is highly questionable for Canada to leave other countries to do the “heavy hitting.”

There is no acknowledgement in his article of the relative ineffectiveness of the bombing missions nor of the largely unreported “collateral damage” to innocent civilians. Nor does Gwyn acknowledge that it is not possible to bomb an ideology.

Far more effective in the long run will be blocking the flow of money to ISIS and disrupting their use of the Internet to promulgate their hateful propaganda in search of new recruits. I believe the results of our recent election show that Canadians disapprove of war-mongering such as advocated by Mr. Gwyn, in favour of finding non-violent ways to counteract the evil represented by the actions of ISIS.

David B. Clemens, Toronto

Mr. Gwyn’s opinion piece left me scratching my head and wondering what his point was.

He admits that back in October withdrawing our jets “may have been justifiable” and further says that “our problem … is that we don’t really know what we should be doing out there in the Middle East.” How he then construes Trudeau’s withdrawal of our jets into a headline claiming it to be his “first major blunder” leaves me wondering about Gwyn’s motives. It sounds a bit like good old Harperesque partisan politics, good of the country be damned.

ISIS is a blot on humanity that deserves extermination. However, if after more than a year of coalition bombing, the result is that ISIS controls more ground and imperils more people than ever before, one needs to question the strategy. To not consider ones options is a peculiar form of lunacy.

Robert Robson, Clarksburg

Canadians voted for change – we have had enough of the previous government whose policies changed our traditional role of being peacekeepers to warmongers in the world. These are the very policies that turned us from being a peaceful country to being a threat to other nations – which has, in turn, encouraged the emergence of radical groups such as ISIS and threatened our security at home.

Our Prime Minister is doing what he promised to do during his campaign. I would hate to think what the reaction would be if he did a180-degree flip on the policies he ran on, as Gwyn suggests he do.

He has acted responsibly, as he should – and continues to reach out to Canadians for their opinions to ensure that the government’s actions and policies reflect the values of the people they represent.

Marnie Hurst, Burlington

Gwyn says, “Trudeau has now confirmed that he is fallible. Just like his father.” That is a meaningless statement.

American bombing in particular, and recently Russian bombing, in the Middle East, are some of the reasons everyone feels so unsafe.

The U.S. and Russian leaders may feel they have no choice. Encouraging Mr. Trudeau to join in the bombing is not only unhelpful, but dangerous.

Bombing may be useful when countries are in conflict. It is not helpful in the struggle against crazy ideologies or religious fanaticism in foreign countries.

Mr. Trudeau should ignore Mr. Gwyn.

Romain Pitt, Toronto

Richard Gwyn rightly points out that our problem “is that we don’t really know what we should be doing out there in the Middle East.”‎ His preference it appears is that we should keep “doing our bit”, dropping bombs‎, while we figure it out.”

To me that is, as he says “misguided” and “threadbare reasoning.”

Scott Harradine, Barrie

I was taken aback by Richard Gwyn’s column. He asks, why is Justin Trudeau ending Canada’s combat role in the Middle East?

As much as I admire Mr. Gwyn, I am surprised by his lack of insight on this issue. Just to refresh his memory, ISIS is a resistance to Western incursion. It is a Hydra, and only a combination of military and diplomatic thrusts can possibly end it. But there needs to be a diplomatic approach. And Canada is an ideal soft power or honest broker. Anyone who wants to talk to us, we will listen.

Mr. Trudeau may well be prophetic in his approach to ISIS. To accuse him of simply making good on a cheap election ploy is to confuse matters irresponsibly.

It takes guts to pull out of Syria. Let’s please give Mr. Trudeau the benefit of the doubt.

Tobi Baumhard, King City

Please stop using the term Islamic State. Call them what they are: terrorist thugs.

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